CFP: Southern Exposure: Analyzing the U.S. South through Film (2/1/06; collection)

CFP: Critics often cite D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation as theorigin of the Hollywood feature film and credit it with helping toform the Hollywood narrative style. However, the film also marks theimportance of the U.S. southern setting in shaping the Americancinematic imagination. Griffith's film raises the broad issues ofwar, tragedy, and romance, but also depicts the more disturbingissues that continue to be associated with the filmic south: racialand sexual violence, slavery, vigilante justice, and lynching.

We are requesting contributions for a collection of essays that willinvestigate the role of cinematic southern space and place ininterpreting broader questions of regional and national identity.Essays should be of interest to a scholarly audience, but suitablefor graduate and undergraduate students in a variety of disciplines:American studies, film studies, and southern studies. Topics mightinclude, but are not limited to:

Southern history through filmFilm adaptations of Southern literatureDocumentariesSouthern humorSouthern nostalgiaRepresentation of race, class, gender in the SouthSexual/racial violenceSouthern lawyer/courtroom dramaSouthern IndieSexualityU.S. South in relation to Other SouthsCivil WarCivil RightsTransnational perspectives on the U.S. South

Send 300 word abstracts or completed papers by February 1, 2006 to either